Kasich focuses on accomplishments in year-end review

Monday

Dec 19, 2011 at 12:01 AMDec 19, 2011 at 11:57 PM

In reviewing his first year as Ohio's 69th governor, Republican John Kasich offered an assessment his supporters and critics could both agree on: "I don't think anyone's seen anything like it, and I'm not sure that we're ever going to see anything like it in the future."

Joe Vardon, The Columbus Dispatch

In reviewing his first year as Ohio’s 69th governor, Republican John Kasich offered an assessment his supporters and critics could both agree on: “I don’t think anyone’s seen anything like it, and I’m not sure that we’re ever going to see anything like it in the future.”

Breaking from tradition from past governors, Kasich today held a year-end press conference at the Governor’s Residence in Bexley for the entire Statehouse press corps rather than meeting with individual media outlets.

Early on, Kasich highlighted the achievement for which he hopes his administration is primarily judged: job creation. He said his administration has been involved in saving or creating 83,000 jobs this year, achieved by offering state-sponsored incentives in return for promises by companies to remain in Ohio and/or add new jobs here.

He also talked about his administration’s efforts to close a budget hole without raising taxes, adding, “We were not going to run over people, not in our nature." That contrasted with a warning he issued just before taking office: “If you’re not on the bus, we will run over you with the bus. And I'm not kidding."

As an addendum to Kasich’s remarks, his staff distributed a five-page list of accomplishments from 2011. Balancing the budget without raising state taxes, despite an $8 billion shortfall, reforming Medicaid, eliminating the estate tax in 2013, selling a prison for $72 million; creating a tax credit for people who invest in small businesses were among the highlights, and backing passage of “pill-mill” legislation.

Kasich also touted his administration’s efforts to boost economic opportunities by pushing “ fracking” for oil in shale rock, mostly in east and southeastern Ohio.

He said, the "regulation on shale is going to be extremely strong...We don’t want yahoos coming into Ohio and damaging our environment.” Major companies want strong regulation, he said.

Kasich also mentioned adding $250 million to the state’s rainy day fund; having the state’s long-term credit outlook upgraded by Standard & Poor’s; reducing regulations on businesses through the Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor-led Common Sense Initiative; shaking an extra $220 million from casinos.

“The dominant pattern for governor Kasich is he came into office promising to make a bunch of big changes, and by and large he’s made those big changes,” said John Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. “While all of those changes were not equally popular, he certainly has done largely what he said he would do.”

This was Kasich’s year-ending press conference, but he still has work remaining in 2011. On Tuesday, he’s joining Steris Co. in Mentor and Philips Healthcare in Cleveland for jobs announcements.

Taylor, meanwhile, was one of the few Kasich cabinet members who did not attend the governor’s press conference. According to a spokeswoman, Taylor was “fulfilling a commitment to complete 120 hours in a three year period of time (40 hours each year) of CPE training to keep her CPA license."

On Sunday, The Dispatch reported that Taylor reimbursed the state $1,039 for either being picked up or dropped off at Akron-Canton Airport – about six miles from her home — by a Department of Transportation airplane. Both planes are kept at Ohio State University’s Don Scott airfield, but on three of Taylor’s four trips this year (for appearances at businesses and speeches to chambers of commerce in Ohio) the plane flew to Akron-Canton to accommodate her.

“I found out about the plane use, understood it was a problem, and instructed the staff to tell Mary that she needs to do that (reimburse the state,” Kasich said Monday. “There wasn’t any argument, so that was the way it happened.”

Records show Taylor wrote three checks to the state on Nov. 8 for trips on June 28, July 15, and Oct. 6.

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